Teen Logan Spiegelman helps seniors with their tech devices

Logan Spiegelman (left) helps a senior with her tablet at Senior Game Day.

During Senior Game Day on Aug. 2 at the Palmetto Bay Library’s Edward and Arlene Feller Community Room in Ludovici Park one of the guests attending was Logan Spiegelman, 16, an incoming junior at Miami Palmetto Senior High School.

Spiegelman was there to offer free services helping seniors with their technology devices — cell phones, computers, tablets — as well as with the Internet and social media sites.

His project, dubbed “Log-On,” is designed to assist seniors who are having trouble learning the new technology. The village has endorsed the project and Spiegelman is allowed to use the village logo in connection with it.

Spiegelman said the project came naturally to him.

“I’ve been helping my grandparents with their technology for years,” he said. “They make calls to my dad and myself every weekend, sometimes the weekdays — their phones break, their computers stop working. My grandpa loves his stocks and they don’t show up on his desktop, or he wants to go to Yahoo and he can’t find Yahoo.

“It’s really just a natural transition for me. I wanted to help in some way or form. I wanted to give my time back in some manner.

I wanted to help people to know how to do what I already know how to do,” he said.

Senior Game Day “Lunch & Learn session,” an initiative of Councilmember Karyn Cunningham, takes place on the first Thursday of every month. The goal is for local businesses and organizations to connect with the community’s elderly population by providing a free informational presentation on a subject that is of interest to seniors, which also includes a sponsored lunch. Such topics of interests include: health and fitness, nutrition, legal documents, personal/financial planning, as well as games, art and dancing.

Spiegelman hopes to study premed in college, but for now he wants to give back to the community for the next few years.

“My first goal is to help just one person,” Spiegelman said. “If I could help one person, I’d be totally fulfilled. The more I can help, the better.

“These devices govern our lives these days, and if I can help people manage them better and grasp what they’re dealing with, by all means let me help them, because if I can assure they can reach a loved one in time of need, or they can send that text message to the grandparent they’re picking up for lunch, by all means let me help them.”

Logan got his name for the project, “Log-On,” because as a baby his two aunts called him Log on as a mispronunciation of his name. So when he came up with the idea for the tech project that seemed the perfect choice for a name.